


Love Like Fire

by ABCsoup



Series: There Could Be Love [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Claudia Stilinski character study, F/M, Family, Fluff, Stilinski Family Feels, Storytelling, sheriff stilinski has an infinite amount of patience
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-17
Updated: 2014-08-17
Packaged: 2018-02-13 12:22:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2150559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ABCsoup/pseuds/ABCsoup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She laughed like crystals. Sharp, but beautiful. Clear. Fragile. The Sheriff tells Stiles about the first time he saw his mother.</p><p>Technically part of my Soulmate 'verse, but can stand alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love Like Fire

_“If you're not afraid, there is no end, only an imminent bliss. So burn like love and love like fire.”_

_-Iain Thomas_

  


She laughed like crystals. Sharp, but beautiful. Clear. Fragile.

I saw her outside the police academy. She’d wanted to be join herself, but for her bad knees. So she took up photojournalism and took an internship at the local paper. When her friend decided to cover a small story on the newest wave of recruits at the academy, she jumped at the chance to get an inside look.

 

I was a new recruit. It was our third day, and I was bone tired. I wanted to go home and sleep, but this bright-eyed, bubbly girl with a notepad stopped me to ask some questions, and she was the kind of person you’d agree to anything for, to save that smile from dropping off her face in disappointment. And the girl next to her had her face behind a camera, taking pictures of everything from every angle. Most of them wouldn’t turn out. She was getting bored, she could never focus on anything for long. And then that girl turned suddenly to me and took a picture before I even knew what was happening. I must have looked comical, a surprised expression on my face because she laughed. And then she kept laughing, and she didn’t stop. I wondered if I was missing something, if she did this often. But the other girl looked concerned and asked her if she was okay. She only nodded. I didn’t understand why until she moved her face out from behind the camera, and I saw her clearly. The colors started flickering in around me, and I started laughing, too.

 

We laughed until we couldn’t breathe, and even then we still kept huffing out little breathy giggles. “I’m Claudia,” she said, when she’d recovered enough.

 

Three days later, two of her photos made it into the paper. One in the police academy story. Another, the close-up of me from that day, in a feel-good story about soulmates meeting for the first time that her friend had wrote after watching us. I groaned, because it was a terrible photo of me, but she swore she loved it the best.

 

She gave up photography, after that. All the colors distracted her; she could never find the right balance. And she hated the idea of taking black and white pictures on purpose. She thought it was a sin to drain color out of a colored world, to reduce the brilliance of everything to a mere two color combo.

 

Life with her was always an adventure. I asked her to marry me two months after we met, because she was my soulmate and I didn’t see why not.

 

She said no.

 

She asked me herself the next morning, after leaving me completely in the dark for twelve hours. Of course, she had to one-up me and made the proposal much grander than mine had been. There were rose petals. When I asked her in exasperation, why she’d told me no earlier, she said it was mostly on principal. She didn’t like anyone telling her what to do.

 

“I wasn’t telling you what to do, I was asking, Claudia. That’s why it’s called a _proposal_.”

“Well, it was still kind of implied. Please marry me.”

 

If I was a more stubborn man, I would have said no and asked her again myself the next day, but I already knew her stubbornness knew no bounds- or common sense. If I tried to play that game against her we’d never actually end up engaged, or I’d lose anyway because all I wanted was to marry her. It was better to admit defeat now.

 

When she found out she was pregnant, she cried and begged for me to quit my job. Being a policeman was too dangerous, she sobbed. She never wanted her child to grow up without a father.

 

I almost did. But the next day she told me she couldn’t be prouder of me and how I couldn’t be a better role model for our child.

 

That girl was a restless whirlwind. I never knew exactly what to expect from her, she kept me on my toes.

 

God help me if our child turns out like, her, I thought. But I think I also hoped you would. And you did.

 

“There’s no halfway loving your mother. That’s what love should be. Do you understand, son?”

“I do.”

“I love you two more than anything,” he added.

“You’re a better storyteller than her,” Stiles told him, with all the earnest a five year old could muster.

“Oh, so you’ve already heard this story from her?” The Sheriff smiled, only imagining his wife’s story. “And what did she say about me?”

  
But Stiles didn’t answer, just ran off, laughing that same crystal laugh.


End file.
